Soma
Resources => Stories, Writings and Other Snippets [Public] => Topic started by: TIOTIT on April 06, 2007, 09:30:11 PM
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Here's one for you Michael...
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Power naps enhance memory consolidation
It is well established that memories are consolidated during sleep. Numerous
studies show that the formation of different kinds of memories - motor learning
and declarative memory, for example - is enhanced as we sleep during the night.
Enhanced memory consolidation takes place during the non-rapid eye movement
(NREM) stage of sleep. Now, a new study published online in the journal PLoS
One, shows that afternoon naps have the same effect on memory formation, and
provides further insight into the processes of sleep-dependent memory
consolidation.
Masaki Nishida and Matthew Walker, of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at
Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, enlisted 26 healthy
participants for the study. One morning, the participants were trained to
perform a simple motor task with the left hand; the task involved learning a
sequence of 5 key presses. The participants were split into two groups; one
group had an afternoon nap lasting between 60-90 minutes after learning the
task, while the other remained awake.
The ability of all the participants to perform the task as quickly and as
accurately as possible was then tested. In those who had taken a siesta, there
was a significant improvement in performance of the task. By contrast, no
significant improvement in task performance was observed in the participants who
had remained awake.
Motor learning is known to produce organizational changes in the motor cortex.
Consistent with this, Masaki and Walker show a precise correlation between the
memory consolidation and activity in the motor cortex. They used an
electroencephalogram (EEG) to record the electrical activity of the brains of
participants while they slept.
In the figure on the left, the blue discs correspond to the positions of the
electrodes; electrode C4 recorded activity from the motor cortex in the right
hemisphere. The left hemisphere of the brain controls the movements of, and
receives sensory inputs from, the right side of the body, and vice versa (this
is known as contralateral control); the cerebellum, however, controls the
ipsilateral (same) side of the body. Hence, because the participants used their
left hands to perform the task they had learnt, a subtle increase in activity
was recorded in the motor cortex in the right, but not the left, hemisphere.
The stages of sleep are defined by characteristic patterns of electrical
activity in the brain. The NREM stage of sleep (during which one does not dream,
and is easily awoken) is characterized by “spindles” - bursts of electrical
activity with frequency of 12-15 Hz that last for 0.5 - 1.5 seconds. The
spindles recorded in the corresponded to the increased neuronal activity in the
right motor cortex and, therefore, with the memory consolidation.
This study confirms that the consolidation of motor memories is associated with
a particluar stage of sleep (NREM), and that this in turn is correlated with
electrical activity in an anatomically discrete region of the brain (the motor
cortex). One interpretation of the findings is that power naps trigger
accelerated memory consolidation. An alternative hypothesis is that a good
night’s sleep consists of multiple stages which are devoted to the consolidation
of memories encoded during waking hours; thus, a full night’s sleep may not be
necessary for this consolidation to take place; as long as a sleep episode - be
it a a short night’s sleep or an afternnon power nap - includes the
corresponding stages (NREM), newly-encoded memories will be consolidated.
Reference:
Nishida, M. & Walker, M. P.
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power naps = makes it sound grand ... but perhaps i just like sleeping. and as i get very little at night, afternoon's next best.
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Everybody want's to sound grand...
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I love my naps!! :D
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I have a shaken sleep schedule from my own doing.. I basically sleep in random sessions throughout any 24 hr time. Often my day sleep is merely a half hour dosing off after meditation or gazing ect..
I like having the different local collective energy difference too.. its quiet sleep during the day where sometimes at night it takes a bit getting through the noise.
A bit of a paradox for some of my workings though.. much I do late in the night when things are quiet.
Soon summer vacation will be here and Ill really shake my sleep up with staying up most of the night and sleeping during the day more, sometimes not sleeping at all.. ect.
Naps... are grand. :D
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I like having the different local collective energy difference too.. its quiet sleep during the day where sometimes at night it takes a bit getting through the noise.
What do you mean by this? 2
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Not as many people are sleeping during the day time, at night I sense this sound of a collective energy.
Its just a different dream movement for me.
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I'm the nightowl, also. Work 4 > midnite. Think I'm gonna go into trance tonight, since I'll out and flying anyway, and focus on this new concept for me. Collective sleeping energy, right? Maybe a windy walk later will draw me to this.
I view the collective stupidity daily, errrr .... rather, the collective blindness, maybe. Gotta stay politically correct! :) Folk walking along and not seeing a damn thing, like ho-dee-hum, here I am, bored stiff ........... I ask, "How you been?" They respond, "I'm here." What the hell's THAT mean?
But I know what it means and it doesn't make me feel so good, you know? But that's most folk, I guess. It keeps my work cut out for me.
Anyway, can you post a picture of your favorite spot so I can have a target?
Thanx, Kiddo. tommy
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Not as many people are sleeping during the day time, at night I sense this sound of a collective energy.
Its just a different dream movement for me.
Know what you mean, Jen! I have some of my best and clearest dreams by the light of day.
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Very busy at work today and I got very tired. I tried to power nap in the middle of my shift. It didn't work :P ;D
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I love my naps!! :D
Most kitties do! ;)
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Very busy at work today and I got very tired. I tried to power nap in the middle of my shift. It didn't work :P ;D
dropping off is the easy part, getting back into shape for action, after waking up, is the hard part - but gets easier with practice.
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So easy, I stopped doing it.
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Salvador Dali would sit in a chair with a key held lightly with his thumb and finger over a plate that was set to the side on the floor. The moment the key hit the plate he would jump from being startled and go about his day. The idea of his was that a power nap was only to last for not less then a half a second the moment sleep began.
I have had good results with this. One time I just slipped into a dream were a friend threw a baseball at my face. The moment it was to hit my face, I was awakened with a start from the key hitting the plate. I don't think sleep is the actual object of the game but the rush of energy produced in this technique.
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Exactly.
It's all in the timeing.
:)
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timing, timing, timing. I am someitmes so thankful for Dali's writings and what he shares in them. He does share his genious with us, if we choose to read them books he wrote. There are diaries of his that where published as well. For me, as a warrior, (I am not like most here: Medicine People) It is essential reading.
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The difference with the afternoon naps versus sleep at night is the possibility to do all variations. If I am tired I try to go to sleep for an hour. If I then fall asleep I wake up after an hour.
If I only want to rest and have an hour for myself I stay between dreamland and awakening and get up when I get some relevant idea of what to do next. In 9 times of 10 I always go to bed for these naps.
When I was ill, having pain from rheumatic disorders, I used the naps to get the feet (where the main problem were) into complete numbness.
There are innumerable variations on how I can use these naps. I had a period when I did set the time to 30 minutes and did a kind of Transcendental meditation without the mantra. I would pass out completely and wake up 30 minutes later.
Maybe it's relevant to tell that I am the type that never fall asleep in front ov the TV-screen, neither can I sleep on buses, airplanes, trains or as a passenger in a car - but these naps are different.
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timing, timing, timing. I am someitmes so thankful for Dali's writings and what he shares in them. He does share his genious with us, if we choose to read them books he wrote. There are diaries of his that where published as well. For me, as a warrior, (I am not like most here: Medicine People) It is essential reading.
what Dali book would you recommend as your favorite? I know him by his art and some of his quotes but have never dug into his writing really.
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http://books.google.com/books?id=kwPQ8eJ_AOcC&dq=Dali+books&pg=PA1&ots=miXzAhXf9v&sig=q7j-I0A6-4Itvdb9lpAWNYIhCfk&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3DDali%2Bbooks%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sourceid%3Die7%26rlz%3D1I7GGLR&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1#PPP1,M1
The secret life of Salvador Dali is one of his early Autobiographies
He also wrote a book that is somewhere in my Library (just spent 20 minute looking for it). It is titled 50 secrets of master craftmanship. It is a wonderful tool for the aspiring painter.